Virtualcol A220 Released!

[Chock 17,769]

Knowing Virtualcol, there probably will be a V5 compatibility update to the installer, their support and updating of things is generally very good, however, their website is down for maintenance at the moment, so they may well be taking the opportunity for a break whilst that is going on since it means their own store is also down whilst that is the case. You can still send support emails to them and can buy their products from other stores however, and in the past I have found their support to be very helpful.

Additionally, those who criticise this product for not being on par with more expensive add-on airliners in terms of capabilities should recognise and acknowledge that this add-on costs £17.99 and that it is quite unashamedly sold with the clearly stated intention of it being a fun 'jump in and go' aeroplane rather than a study sim, as well as being a fairly decent lookalike for those who want one. If people want completely realistic and sophisticated functionality from a simulated Airbus, the price is approximately seven and a half times the cost of the Virtualcol A220, in the shape of £140, for the Flight Sim Labs A320. 

 

 

[micstatic 4,319]

I would so love somebody to make a study level A220 for p3d

[ywg256 75]

someone was working on one in the FSDeveloper showroom forum.  Not sure if it's still active or not.  Haven't followed the progress in awhile.

[asustech 5]

On 5/9/2020 at 4:46 PM, pgde said:

That isn't what was posted.

yes a v5 compatible A220 

[OzWhitey 3,353]

I'm horrified that I am flying this thing - PMDG purist here - but thanks to this thread, I took the A220 for a flight in P3D v5 last night into EGFF. It was actually quite fun, very smooth. The throttle looks ridiculous in VR and I need to do a bit more to set up my controls, but overall it was surprisingly enjoyable.

Very realistically (it was 4am when i tried this), I took off and then started sorting through the warnings. Systems depth is not awful. Flight model? Well, as i was searching the overhead panel for the yaw "dumper" (why do devs keep calling it that, guys please stop already), I looked down and noticed that my speed was at least a hundred and fifty knots over where I expected it be. Hmmm...not sure if the real A220 comes with JATOs, but this one seemed to!

I'm actually - gasp - going to try the GTN mod tonight, and am looking forward to trying this out.

In summary, good fun and the FDE is still more reaslitic than slew mode! 🙂

 

[Chock 17,769]

6 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

I'm horrified that I am flying this thing - PMDG purist here - but thanks to this thread, I took the A220 for a flight in P3D v5 last night into EGFF. It was actually quite fun, very smooth. The throttle looks ridiculous in VR and I need to do a bit more to set up my controls, but overall it was surprisingly enjoyable.

Yup. In spite of it being a cheaper 'lite' add-on, it's actually not a bad add-on aeroplane. The VC is a reasonably accurate representation of the real thing, and in comparison to earlier products from Virtualcol, it represents a step up in the visuals department, albeit without a lot of the communication and navigational gizmos the real thing has up at the pointy end, but it's actually a lot better than one would expect at the price point, to the extent that you can do a fairly realistic airliner operations flight with the thing. 

The exterior model has a few minor inaccuracies (the windows are a tad oversized), but nothing so bad as to be a glaring error, and it is also nice that you get two variants. As you say, it's not going to have PMDG - or given that it is now officially an Airbus, perhaps more accurately FSL - quaking in their boots, but as a 'jump in and go' airliner with a bit of realism thrown in, people could certainly do worse.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Chock

[OzWhitey 3,353]

4 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yup. In spite of it being a cheaper 'lite' add-on, it's actually not a bad add-on aeroplane. The VC is a reasonably accurate representation of the real thing, and in comparison to earlier products from Virtualcol, it represents a step up in the visuals department, albeit without a lot of the communication and navigational gizmos the real thing has up at the pointy end, but it's actually a lot better than one would expect at the price point, to the extent that you can do a fairly realistic airliner operations flight with the thing. 

The exterior model has a few minor inaccuracies (the windows are a tad oversized), but nothing so bad as to be a glaring error, and it is also nice that you get two variants. As you say, it's not going to have PMDG - or given that it is now officially an Airbus, perhaps more accurately FSL - quaking in their boots, but as a 'jump in and go' airliner with a bit of realism thrown in, people could certainly do worse.

Just flew it on a short hop EGHI to EGTE, with Trueearth and some addon airports. Used the GTN mod.

My thoughts:

- More advance avionics than the Majestic Q400.

- Much better frame rates than the FSL A320.

- More realistic ground handling than the PMDG 747.

 

[Chock 17,769]

33 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

My thoughts:

- More advance avionics than the Majestic Q400.

- Much better frame rates than the FSL A320.

- More realistic ground handling than the PMDG 747.

 

You forgot cheaper payware add-on repaints than Ariane. 🤣

[edpatino 1,964]

Maybe it's a bit late, since the product has been around for a while, but decided to give it a go yesterday and I have to say that VirtualCol has made a very good progress with this product.

As it was mentioned before in this same thread, the existing UHD packages at SimMarket are definitely a very good pick. I can recommend the Packages 5 and 6 as they come with the American, United, Lufthansa and S7 Airlines liveries, with their new colors, for the -100 and -300 series. These UHD textures improve very much the looking, which by default is still very good, of the aircraft (exterior).

Cheers, Ed